journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungen
pects of institutional evolution in the sixties”, “the standpoint of the dynamic forces” made
up of political parties, the trade unions and business circles, the “position of the leaders of
the seventies”, finally the “relaunch of the eighties and nineties”. The great variety of themes
that recall the political aspects as well as social and monetary questions, and the particular
importance attached to the personal contributions of the French and German political leaders,
who were increasingly embodying the relation between the two countries, answer the
general question on the adaptation of the “Franco-German couple” to the evolution of the
European project. This often hackneyed expression finds here its true justification, each of
the actors taking a constant interest in the European policy of the other and each of them
conceiving his own European policy according to the interests and concern of his neighbour.
This study of the Franco-German relations with regard to the European construction
reveals a certain number of permanent features, beyond the evolutions and transformations
that give a certain rhythm to the history of the two partners.
The European construction is in the first place a matter of pragmatism and realism, rather
than of lyricism or vision. The Schuman declaration and Chancellor Adenauer’s response to
it at that time were only partly attributable to the power of a visionary project or to the
necessity of reconciliation, but embraced also France’s and Germany’s immediate interests
at the beginning of the fifties. The contributions devoted to the politicians, considered the
most European political leaders (Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Helmut Schmidt, François Mitterrand
and Helmut Kohl) emphasize the pragmatism of their European proposals. To each
of them could apply Willy Brandt’s affirmation in 1971 quoted by Andreas Wilkens, according
to which the German chancellor refused “institutional perfectionism” and “integrationist
abstractions” preferring a step-by-step policy, “the possible and practical steps that we can
take right now”. Michèle Weinachter, in her study on Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, recalls that
the ancient president of the Republic affirmed his support of federalism only after 1981. The
election of the European Parliament by universal suffrage, often presented together with the
creation of the EMS as one of France’s important contributions to the European construction,
is described by people around the President as the “least evil” in the face of the feared
reinforcement of the prerogatives of the European Parliament. But this pragmatism also
picked out by Georges Saunier for the years 1981-1985 during which the relaunch projects
were being prepared, doesn’t work just one-way. It doesn’t alone put a damper on the most
daring advances of the Community construction; it also protects its achievements in the
name of well understood national interests, particularly at the economic level. Pierre Gerbet
thus shows the importance of President Pompidou’s action in favour of economic integration,
even if he basically remained loyal to the de Gaullian conception of the Europe of
States, despite some astonishing references to prospective transfers of sovereignty in favour
of a European government.
Pragmatism at work in the European policy pursued by France and Germany neither
rules out difficulties nor the will to go ahead. Differences of opinion between François Mitterrand
and Helmut Kohl, whether about the part of the WEU analyzed by Elisabeth du Réau
or concerning the institutional reform of Europe, studied by Hanns-Jürgen Küsters at the
time of reunification, prove that the Franco-German relations are not self-evident according
to François Mitterrand’s own words in 1994, that they evolve continuously and that crises or
friction cannot always be avoided. Even then, it still must be stressed, that oppositions are
not fixed and could never be reduced to the simple contrast between centralizing France,
desperately defending national sovereignty, and federal Germany whose constitutional tradition
might make it more accessible to the process of Community integration. If basically the
idea of supranationality meets with less resistance in Germany than in France, Wolf Gruner
nevertheless shows that from the beginning of the debates on the ratification of the ECSC
treaty within the Bundesrat there is to be found a certain distrust of Community integration
on the part of the German Länder. These reservations have known an important development